


the snakes listen

by sugar_00



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harriette just wants some love, I Don't Even Know, Mentions of Blood, Nothing explicit, Powerful Harry, Slytherin Harry Potter, Snape is an asshole, but still mentions of abuse, church, fem!Harry Potter - Freeform, no beta we die like men, tho it's Harriette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:08:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28504227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugar_00/pseuds/sugar_00
Summary: I will tell you a story about a girl whose only friends were snakes even though she gave away all her heart for a mention of love. I will tell you a story about a world that spits at the girl and then is afraid of her and then regrets meeting her at all, and a second world that is so different but so similar. I will tell you a story about how this all could have been prevented but it was not and now you are burning.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	1. introduction

**Author's Note:**

> will I ever write continuation? who knows, certainly not me
> 
> all the love to you guys in this new year

She looks at the carnage around her, tears streaming from her eyes mixing with the ash on her hollowed face. It’s the only indication that she feels anything at all - her eyes remain empty, lifeless - as she takes in the sight. Her world, the world as she knows it, is gone, burnt under her righteous anger, fuelled by memories of every time she screamed for help and they did nothing.

She turns the bone-white wand on herself-

—

“ _Avada Kedavra!”_

The suffering in Harriette Potter’s life begins and ends with the same words, the same green light illuminating her face. The very first time she hears the words, rolling like syrup out of his mouth, she still knows love and warmth and goodness. With every other time, she will feel something tightening in her chest, threatening to burst, to flood the world with her suffering. They will say that green compliments her like no other colour.

Though it may not seem like this, the suffering in Harriette Potter’s life begins with Albus Dumbledore honestly, sincerely, wishing for the best. But being the leader of the world (even if the world is as small as wizarding Britain) is not easy and no man is without flaws, and when Harriette arrives in Hogwarts, only then is he brutally reminded of the not-quite-forgotten hero. It’s just that, at that point, it’s already too late.

When Albus Dumbledore is still thinking he made the right decision, he puts Harriette under Durslyes’ care. Or, more precisely, he lefts a one-year-old baby on their footstep with a letter informing about the baby’s parents’ death which - we will defend Dursleys just this one time - could throw anyone off the loop. At first, Harriette is mostly met with indifference, she’s definitely not coddled but she’s more or less clean and, a bit less than more, fed. The trouble starts on her third birthday, when Harriette makes all of Dudley’s toys fly and any sort of neutral feelings in Petunia’s and Vernon’s hearts are replaced with pure hate. For the next nine years, the Girl-Wonder of the wizarding world will know nothing but pain and dirt and hunger and loneliness so terrible, that it makes the stars weep over her fate.

Dursleys are deeply religious people but not in a way that makes them help the poor or love their neighbours as themselves. No, their zealotry makes Vernon sneer at the young mothers with hunger in their eyes, who beg for money at the street corners. It makes Petunia gossip about two teenaged boys who made the mistake of standing just a little bit too close to each other and were never seen together again. Finally, it makes them send Harriette to a an institution led by nuns with Bible verses written in their hearts, but all mixed up, all wrong.

-

They hate her since the very first day: the children, the nuns with wooden rulers carried around like weapons, the priests who regard other kids with kindness but Harriette with distrust. At the beginning, it’s not anything particular - she hasn’t proved to be a _freak_ yet, not in school - but they feel there’s something different about her, something that they don’t understand. It’s a failing of humans that they are so quick to hate that, what is different from them. But Harriette could have managed the coldness, the stares, even the occasional kicks or pushes. It all got so, so much worse when Sister Amelia saw her heal a bird with her touch - but no, even then she could have managed because they thought her unnatural but they also found her unnerving, with her haunting green eyes and her lightning-shaped scar. It actually got worse when a visiting priest saw Harriette converse with a snake, crouched behind the chapel. He was a tall, imposing man, deep lines on his face from years of austerity and cruelty. The man looked at a girl, a child still, finding a friend in nature but what he saw was an abomination fraternising with forces of the Devil. After all wizards aren’t the only ones who see evil in snakes.

_“Potter, what were you doing?”_

_Eyes too tired to belong to a five-year-old. Blink. Blink. Silence._

_“Girl, you will answer Father Thomas in this instant!”_

_“Sister Margaret, calm yourself.”_

_“Yes, Father, I apologise.”_

_“Harriette, wasn’t it? Did you understand what was the snake telling you?” Blink. Blink. Silence._

_“We need to take the Devil out of her.”_

-

Hagrid, even if his heart was as big as he himself, was just pleased to see a polite little girl with her mother’s fiery hair and her father’s aristocratic features. He didn’t see Harriette was more of a caged animal than a girl, so terrified of doing the wrong thing that she almost didn’t breath just to avoid unnecessary attention. He didn’t notice how her hair curled around her arms almost as if alive, almost resembling blood flowing down her too-pale skin. He didn’t remember that James’s face was handsomely structured but fuller, healthier, while his daughter’s cheekbones looked too sharp for her age.

Harriette looked at the snake terrariums in _Magical Menagerie_ and unshed tears glistened in her eyes.

-

At the age of eleven, Draco Malfoy generally didn’t see much, apart from his very very small circle of interest. He was happy to have someone who looked at him attentively as he rattled on about his parents, his broom, his robes, his friends, his his _his._ The girl was dressed in hand-me-down clothes, something Draco knew next to nothing about, which hang on her petite frame. She had dark circles under her eyes and when asked if she prefers to get measured without taking off all of her layers, she quickly agreed. All in all, she wasn’t the type of person Draco was used to paying a lot of attention to. In exactly a month, he will have a passing thought that maybe he should pay more attention to her.

In exactly six years, as the world burns around them, he will curse them all for not paying more attention to her.

-

For the longest time, the world was hazy around Lord Voldemort, milky white mist curling in the corners of his brain. Splitting one’s soul six times isn’t the best practice, though it will take him a bit longer to realise that. That day, the mist is still present in his head, thoughts about greatness shifting and changing. Then he sees her and for the first time in years, the mist disappears. He may be more of a monster than anything else but a tiny piece of his soul still remembers the orphanage, the bombings, the famine. He knows abuse, he knows terror and in Harriette Potter he sees all of that. Maybe there’s a version of this story in which the monster can be human, just this one time, and the golden girl would have found her sanctuary in his arms. This is not that version of the story.

Lord Voldemort sees a broken child, groomed to be a soldier and a martyr, and he _smiles._

—

“Harriette Potter!”

In an instant, the attention of all of the students turns towards the first-years. They all expect someone great, someone confident, someone red-and-golden with a big smile and an even bigger ego, and _God, aren’t they surprised?_ Because what they get is this ghost of a girl, so very thin, so very pale - the only noticeable thing about her are the eyes which glow (don’t be stupid, it’s only reflection of the light from the floating candles) and her hair, red like blood, flowing freely, moving slightly as she walks. And there’s the scar too, of course. It’s not that visible, not with the whiteness of her skin, so its only more surprising when they notice it’s like a lightning branching out, not the simple zigzag on books’ covers.

She sits down on the stool and for a second, the world stops breathing.

 _“What do we have- oh. Oh, my.”_ _The Hat looks at the layers and layers of barbed wire woven tightly around the girl’s mind. “You’ll have to let me in, child.”_

_There’s a moment of consideration and the Hat is allowed to look behind the wire. It may be the most beautiful thing the Hat has ever seen, an explosion of colours like a cosmic nebula. It may be the saddest thing the Has has ever seen, so much pain interwind with every thread of colour, an echo of screams, of chanting in Latin, of blood and burnt flesh. It may be the most terrifying thing the Hat has ever seen because it remembers the mind of the boy who became a monster and the world would never survive the two of them. Still, there’s no other choice._

“Slytherin!”

Harriette looks at the emerald banners depicting coiled snakes and something darkens in her eyes.

-

They have expected so much from here and yet her spells only ever barely work. Her feather rises above her desk just a tiny bit, her shields are paper-thin, her needles remain wooden. Her House is quick to notice the weakness and to pick it apart. They jeer at her, making fun of her skills, of her blood, of her looks. The fact that Snape seemingly can’t stand to look at her makes them even bolder. Harriette lets them because she’s still only eleven and she still hopes that if they don’t see her as a threat, maybe, just maybe, even one person will come to love her. At the same time, she shouldn’t have been surprised that it doesn’t last long.

She’s walking through the Common Room, back to her dormitory, when Malfoy steps in her path. She knows they have planned something because all of the first years - except for Blaise, he will be important later - try to look as if they aren’t paying attention at all.

“Poor Potter, came to cry about for Mommy and Daddy?” He taunts. “Does Potty miss Mommy and Daddy?”

It’s not the best insult but Pansy laughs in the obnoxious way only she can achieve and others join. Harriette tries to sidestep Malfoy, reminding herself that he’s not worth it, they are not worth it.

“Don’t run away, Potty! Don’t you like us?” He turns around slightly to see if everyone is watching them. “Maybe you don’t want to be here, maybe you’ll prefer Gryffindorks?”

She lowers her head and finally manages to walk around him, and she thinks she will be able to leave but it’s not finished yet.

“Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you,” the boy sneers and tries to grab her wrist. His hand catches the long fingerless glove she’s always wearing and here, Malfoy makes a big mistake. He _pulls_ , trying to get the glove from her hand and that’s something she can’t allow. They will not see what the muggles have done to her, she will not bear her secrets before the people who hater her, she will not she will not she will not-

Every crystal of the large chandelier hanging above their heads, magically amplified to provide light to all of the room, explodes, shatters of glass flying around. Everyone ducks, some of the older students managing to cast _Protego_ in time. There’s a moment of silence when the Slytherins are too petrified to move, their attention centred on the only person left standing, her eyes glowing (don’t be stupid, it’s only reflection of the fireplace flickering) .

“You will find, Draco,” Harriette’s voice is coarse, like pieces of gravel scraping against each other, “that I fit among snakes _really_ well.”

-

She’s left alone after that.

Behind a wall of silencing spells, she cries herself to sleep that night.


	2. all the potential lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harriette explodes a troll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's much shorter than the previous chapter but I wrote it instead of my sociology essay so you have to forgive me

Everyone knows that Blaise Zabini’s mother has had more husbands than is possible without raising suspicions. Everyone knows that the boy is almost too beautiful for his age, face stolen from a Greek statue. Not everyone - almost no one, in fact - knows that Blaise Zabini and his mother share the same symbol on their right shoulder blade - a winged eye.

Blaise knows _Alohomora, Petrificus Totalus_ and _Lumos_ , but he also knows herbs, crystals and eyes rolled to the back of his head. He knows visions of the fallen star looking at the carnage around her - he doesn’t know every step that will lead to his moment but he knows the end won’t be pretty.

He won’t do anything about that, it’s not his role or his place, the only thing he can do is sit back and observe and accept their fate. After all, it’s only their own fault.

-

Harriette knows she’s being watched, it’s nothing new in her life, but this time it’s different. Blaise Zabini seems to look inside her soul, inside her body and mind, seems to look past all her walls. Harriette knows danger and Blaise Zabini doesn’t feel like danger, he doesn’t feel like anything, really. That’s what unnerves her the most.

“Zabini,” she quietly sits down at his table in the library. “I don’t understand you.”

“Hello to you too, Potter. What exactly don’t you understand?”

“I know you spend a lot of time watching me and I want to understand what do you want from me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Potter. I don’t watch you,” he says with a faint sneer on his angelic features.

It’s a good mask but Harriette knows that’s exactly what it is - a mask. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

A shadow passes in the boy’s eyes and he sighs. “I just think you might make waves around here. I don’t want to miss it.”

It’s not exactly the truth either but a part of Harriette, the part that’s still hungry for companion, for friendship, raises its head. Can you blame her?

“Can I study with you?” She asks tentatively.

Zabini smiles but it’s a sad smile. “I can’t, I- it has to happen like this.”

He packs his things and stands up while Harriette just sits watching the desk. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he says and disappears in the labyrinth of books.

Harriette stays alone. Again.

— —

Halloween has never been a good day for Harriette. It’s not even about her parents’ death - she learned about that a bit too late and, doesn’t that show the whole tragedy? Rather, it’s related to the years spent in the orphanage. The nuns were always in a bad mood on that night, quicker to snap, more prone to violence. Absentmindedly, she runs a finger along the edge of her glove. Halloween is not her lucky day.

It’s not really surprising then, that even in this new world, in a magical school, her bad luck continues. She’s walking in an empty corridor when she hears a bloodcurdling scream. And God, her self-preservation is strong but she’s still a soft thing, she knows all too well crying for help so she rushes towards the sound.

It’s Granger, the Gryffindor know-it-all, and Weasley who still sometimes eyes her weirdly. It’s also a mountain troll that seems very keen on bludgeoning them to death. Harriette freezes, not exactly willing to throw herself into the situation, but then Granger screams her name with such panic and pleading that she has to help.

She thinks about a possible friendship, about protecting yourself from danger, about the power that sings in her veins, even as restrained as it is. She thinks about all that and raises her hands (she will always find them more natural than the wand) and then there is a sound like a cork coming out of a bottle. And silence.

The professors burst into the bathroom only to stop dead in their tracks. The normally white tiles are now red, blood dripping from faucets and in the middle of all that stand three children straight out of a horror movie.

“Merlin and Morgana,” McGonagall brings a hand to her lips. “What happened here?”

Harriette doesn’t know what to say so she’s grateful when Granger, still trembling, answers, “It was accidental magic. Ma’am.”

Harriette is not sure the adults believed Granger but the sight must be too unreal because they are shepherded out of the bathroom without any more comments. She turns around to the girl with a look of gratitude but she’s met with two sets of eyes: one full of fear, one of hostility.

There’s a version of this story in which the encounter with a troll is the beginning of a golden friendship, full of love and warmth and laughter. This is not that version of the story.

-

The door to the Common Room opens and Snape comes in with the Potter girl. Her hair is matted, red like blood- but wait, she drags her hand through it and it comes away red, it is blood. They realise that she’s all covered in blood, only her face wiped haphazardly.

“The troll has been contained,” Snape drawls. “You can calm down, now.”

He exits the room, leaving behind silence. Harriette sniffs and retreats to her dormitory, leaving behind a storm of whispers.

The blood that has dripped from her robes stays on the carpet until the house elves clean it.

**Author's Note:**

> also if you happen to read my other story, know that I'm terrible at posting and terribly sorry about that


End file.
